The Key Reporter
Spring 2000, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 8-9
John Hopkins 1999 PBK Graduate Describes Teaching Sixth
Grade in Oakland
By Molly Ness
I am a first-year teacher of sixth-graders at the Roosevelt
Middle School in East Oakland, California. When I graduated from
Johns Hopkins University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1999) with a B.A. in
political science, I had several job offers with consulting firms
and research organizations, and in the fields of law and politics.
I chose to make the commitment to Teach For America because it
offered what I considered the ideal combination of education,
community service, and working with children.
Teach For America is part of the AmeriCorps service program.
Founded 10 years ago, Teach For America places more than 800 college
graduates every year in the nation's 12 most impoverished school
districts: in urban areas such as Baltimore, Los Angeles, the
Bay Area, and New York and in rural areas such as the Mississippi
Delta and the Rio Grande Valley. All members undergo an intensive
five-week training program before they take up their assignments.
The training focuses not only on theories of education but also
on practical ways of becoming an effective teacher and of holding
children to high expectations while seeking to level the playing
field for students at schools like mine, who obviously lack the
educational opportunities that children from better backgrounds
have. Teach For America corps members are warned that the two-year
commitment will be challenging, but are encouraged to rely on
parents, administrators, fellow teachers, and Teach For America
alumni for support and guidance. Corps members are hired directly
by the school district, and many complete state credentialing
programs during their two years of service.
Roosevelt is an extremely overcrowded school, with an annual
teacher retention rate of 60 percent. The student body is 50 percent
Asian, 25 percent Latino, and 25 percent African American. Located
in a rough area notorious for drug use, the school is plagued
by gangs. My students are nonnative English speakers; they speak
10 languages, including Cambodian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Arabic,
and Cantonese. Many of my students are recent immigrants, and
I am expected to teach them conversational and written English
as well as the sixth-grade social studies state-mandated curriculum.
Although I had been told before I began my Teach For America
commitment that I was about to experience a harsher reality than
anything I had previously known, I nonetheless believed that teaching
was a 9-to-3 job, that I could leave my work at school and keep
my personal and professional spheres totally separate. I believed
that I could bring my students into my classroom, shut the door,
and leave all of the problems of the inner-city community at the
doorstep. I believed that I could instill the love of learning
in my students, and somehow forget all the turmoil they faced
in their lives outside school.
I believed that my passion and enthusiasm for my children and
for teaching would never diminish. I vowed that I would stay positive
and avoid the disillusionment that so many teachers feel. I would
go into my classroom every day demonstrating the same energy and
passion I started with in September. It wouldn't matter if it
was a gloomy Thursday afternoon in late October, or if I had been
battling the flu for the previous two weeks. I believed that I
would never become the"worksheet teacher.'' Rather than slide
grammar worksheets under my students' noses, I would have them
build the Pyramids out of sugar cubes. I set high expectations
not only for my students, but for myself as well.
In one swift move, I graduated from college, packed my belongings,
and drove cross-country to start life anew in an entirely unfamiliar
environment without the comforts of family, friends, and home.
I remember thinking at first how exciting all this was--relocating,
getting my first real job, and having the responsibilities of
adult life. It was a whirlwind of adventure, embarking on a new
chapter in my life.
But by early November, the excitement had worn off, and the
reality had begun to sink in. I was in a new city, far from my
home, from roots to my past. Maintaining a positive learning environment
in an otherwise depressing place was an endless challenge--the
constant planning, the discipline, the paperwork, the headaches
of the district bureaucracy. I felt underappreciated by my administrators
and abused by my students. I would come home from school, sit
on my couch, and think,"I can't go back tomorrow.'' I felt drained.
And gradually I felt I was letting my students down, as though
nothing I was doing in my classroom would ever be enough to make
life fair for them. I was becoming the worksheet teacher that
I had sworn I would never be. I felt I had lost myself in this
process of trying to serve my students. I started asking the really
hard questions, about myself, my life, and my commitment.
Often I feel that Teach For America is too eager to dismiss
the frustrations we teachers inevitably feel about our lives and
our jobs. It sometimes seems as if I am just supposed to grin
and bear it through two years, until finally I can reflect on
my experience and say,"That was an impossibly difficult experience,
but I am a richer person because of it.''
Given the passion and dedication of most corps members, it seems
taboo to question your commitment to Teach For America and to
your students, but in fact, I question my commitment almost every
day. I have a vivid memory of calling my best friend, also a '99
corps member, who was in Compton, to ask,"Will you quit with me?''
At first I thought that doubting my commitment made me a bad person,
and that some omniscient Teach For America presence was frowning
down on me. In fact, maybe all this questioning of my commitment
is actually a positive force that makes me push to achieve more
in my classroom.
When I went home for the winter break, I didn't know what to
tell my friends and family about my Teach For America experience
thus far. Should I tell them how I teach 127 students who speak
little to no English? Should I tell them how there are never enough
markers, or scissors, or even textbooks to go around? Should I
tell them that my school has no heat or that we have no nurse?
Or maybe I should tell them about my 13-year-old student who cannot
spell"dog'' because he is a victim of social promotion? Should
I tell about how I had a student dragged out of my classroom,
in handcuffs, by the Oakland city police? Or maybe I should tell
about the time when I decided to call home to talk to Damon's
mother about how he swore in my classroom. I assumed that I was
being a concerned, nurturing teacher. Instead I discovered that
Damon and his mother were in hiding from his father, who had recently
tried to murder his mother. _______________________________________________________________
Given the passion and dedication of most corps members, it seems
taboo to question your commitment to Teach For America and to
your students, but in fact, I question my commitment almost every
day.
________________________________________________________________
I slowly realized that any platitudes I would provide would
be out of place, and simply untrue. I could barely make sense
of the tension of opposites I felt in my life: Did I want to quit,
or did I want to devote all of my life and energy to the Teach
For America vision?
I began to reflect on my initial impressions of teaching. I
remembered feeling overwhelmed upon first entering my classroom.
Where did I even begin to teach these children English and social
studies? More important, how could I teach them that education
would be their way out of poverty and into successful and meaningful
futures? How could I teach them to be upstanding citizens and
to practice civility in their everyday lives? How could I teach
them conflict resolution, responsibility, and self-respect? When
I told my father about my worries, he said, "Do your best. You
have been handed an impossible situation. All that anybody can
ask you to do is your best. Don't beat yourself up over what you
cannot accomplish.''
The problem is, however, that far too many of our nation's children
go to overcrowded schools like mine that cannot provide adequate
materials, instruction, or attention. They will receive a sub-par
education, which seems to mandate that a cycle of poverty will
not soon be broken. And too many teachers are thrown into their
classrooms with meager tangible support. Teachers do not receive
enough concrete incentives to make teaching a lifelong profession.
Our best teachers are often lost before they even start to achieve
success in the classroom. It is no secret that teachers are overworked,
underpaid, and underappreciated; I am living proof of that.
Lately, I have struggled to make sense of the lessons that I
have learned thus far. Here they are:
- I have learned more about the world in my few months of teaching
than I did in four semesters of college.
- I have learned that children are unbelievably resilient. My
students face immeasurable challenges, and tackle them with
the courage, grace, and strength that some adults fail to demonstrate.
- I have learned that many people in the world today would rather
ignore school districts like Oakland than to try to solve the
problems.
- I have learned that it is rather easy to be idealistic in
thoughts and words, but much harder to keep that idealism in
actions and in everyday life. In other words, I have learned
the meaning of humility.
- I have realized that prior to my teaching experience, I had
lived a sheltered life. I had always thought that I did my part
to make noble contributions to society, but I now realize that
those efforts were far too sporadic and minimal.
- I have realized that too few people in our society today devote
their lives to making this world a little better than they found
it.
- And I have learned that although I am only one person, my
power as a teacher will extend further than I could have ever
guessed.
Editor's note: Molly Ness plans to return to Roosevelt next year
but has not decided whether to teach sixth grade again or to follow
her students up to seventh grade "in order to provided some stability
for these children, who have very little of it at home."
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Key Reporter
Phi Beta Kappa Society
1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20036
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Copyright © 1999 by the Phi Beta Kappa Society. All rights
are reserved.
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